Last year I plastered the downstairs corridor and painted it. It’s in 3 different sections, 3 shades of blue. I had lots of dark blue paint left from the bar so thought I ought to use it.
It’s good to get lots of pictures up. I love seeing our friends and family so regularly. I pretty much emptied my photo albums.
In some places you can see my plaster patching but it still looks better than it did so it will do for now 
I’m ashamed of myself for posting so intermittently here. Twitter and Pinterest are to blame Anyway, no need for excuses. I’ve been doing stuff around the house over the last year. Here’s the front hall now.
I fell in love with some fabric and went mad making a curtain and cushions. The fabric pattern and colour just makes me feel happy every time i see it.
Anyone who has ever visited and seen our front hall dumping ground will notice what a huge difference this is
That’s Al’s rowing machine.
We were down to 3 girls and 4 boys in the hen house. Not good. That’s counting Jill Halfpenny who is hopping around on one leg. It was time to do something about it. We wanted to get more bantams but that’s not so easy around here. We took a trip to Dookinella on Achill Island and now have 6 new girls. One is a bantam and the other 5 are normal sized. They are huge by comparison. Twice the size of our roosters . One of our new hens is an Araucana or at least in part. She lays green eggs!
The new girls with one of our roosters who's trying hard to get in their good books. Trudi looks on.
The Araucana on the left has a beard. I'm thinking of calling the one on the right Pavlova.
Poor Jill Halfpenny is probably not long for this world. With all of the excitement yesterday she decided to take a trip outside. I thought I would capture her and her lovely whiskers before it's too late.
Here's Jill again next to the new Araucana. She's very small by comparison but very dignified.
Green egg!
I’ve produced a book cover for my friend’s wonderful book. You can read some excerpts on her site. I’m now working on another paper cut on a topic very close to my heart.
Everyday when I get up I let Trudi out for her morning ablutions and take in the view from our front door. This was my view this morning:
You may not even notice, but this sight took my breath away. See the person to the left of the gate? Gave me such a shock. There is never a person visible when I look outside. They were just standing there, smoking a fag. Trudi went over to investigate and that alerted them to the fact they had been spotted. She came back when I called her and I made sure that I took plenty of photos of the intruder trying to clamber over the rocks by the shore. I found the whole thing quite freaky and all a bit ‘grim reaper’.
My Brazilian Twitter friend @rejaneborges works at Obvious Mag. A great site that features all kinds of interesting stories, often arts and culture related. She was kind enough to feature some of my work. Here’s the story:
I was telling Al about it and he was asking me what it actually said. I speak Spanish but not Portugese and so, wasn’t exactly sure. He was quiet for a while but then started bawling with laughter. He had decided to use Google Chrome’s translator. I had never tried that. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. This is what it said:
Hello and Happy 2012! Hope you had a wonderful festive season, whatever you were celebrating.
We went the whole hog when decorating this year as we had our lovely niece and nephew here with us and their mother, Al’s sister Samantha of course. The place looks so bare without the twinkly lights and decorations now we’ve taken them down.
So that I can remember where everything goes to get the same effect next year, I’ve taken some photos of our sitting room. You can click to enlarge:
It’s been a different kind of Christmas this year. Normally it’s just Al and I and my parents. This year we have Al’s sister Samantha and her two children, our nephew and niece, Tyler and Marci here. We were nervous about having children around but it was wonderful to have them here. They made our Christmas really special. There were a lot more presents under the tree this year and Santa and his reindeer got a warmer welcome than normal.
Here they are full of sweets and gingerbread:
Here they are on Christmas day, utterly exhausted after all of the excitement:
Not the best photo I know, but here is Trudi delivering her traditional Christmas message. Special mention was given to her favourite Aunties, Annie and Bertje for their Summer Lovin’. Merry Christmas everyone.
My mother the carrot she grew. She is the very proud winner of a first prize rosette at the Achill Sheep Show last weekend.
